Ahead of their Takedown set, Megan and Merick from Vexed talk about grief as fuel, watching heavy music crowds get more diverse, and why the new album is simply Vexed – levelled up.
Words & photo by Alia Thomas (@aliathomasphoto) | April 11, 2026
This is your first time at Takedown Festival. How’s it been for you so far?
Merick: Great Yeah, had a blast. Very cool, yeah.
Megan: Really good. Very hot, sweaty, cramped room. Loved it.
For people just discovering Vexed, how would you describe your sound and identity as a band?
Meg: Heavy. We have a lot of weird influences from everywhere, but I think the vibe is just generally pissed off.
Mer: Heavy, angry.
A lot of your music feels very emotionally driven. How important is vulnerability in what you create?
Meg: Really important. The guys know I am a complete chronic oversharer. And so my therapy and only way of coping is by writing music. So, yeah, it’s really important to me. But I don’t know what it’s like for you guys if you’re just there for the riffs, just there for the breakdowns.
Mer: Yeah, I think it works as a part of the whole thing. I think that’s definitely part of the identity as well. So I think, yeah, I mean, obviously, I enjoy the riffs. But I think also that vulnerability part that you mentioned brings quite a lot to the table.
Meg: Yeah, helps with connecting with people.
Your last album, Negative Energy, came from a very tough time in your personal lives, covering themes of grief and loss. Was it challenging writing songs of this nature from experiences that are so deeply personal?
Meg: Yeah, it was horrible. Well, that’s quite far haha, but a lot of it was a lot of fun and cathartic. But I do remember writing, doing vocals for one of the songs and I was in your vocal booth crying. And you were like, are you all right? Should we stop for a minute? And I came out, I was like, “I’m fine, just keep going. Just keep going.”
Do you find it helps the process?
Meg: Oh, definitely, yeah. The takes were great, so it worked. I think when you have that real raw emotion, you can hear it and it’s just, more genuine, isn’t it? There’s nothing worse than hearing somebody pretend to cry. Have an actual menty b…
Megan, on this record you leaned more into harsh vocals. Was this a conscious creative decision to match the heavier themes running through the album?
Meg: I think it was, yeah, I’ve always, like, preferred heavier music when it comes to metal. Like, heavier vocal story when it comes to metal. So I definitely wanted to lean into that more for Negative Energy. But I think now I’m kind of going back and forth a bit more, like, enjoying my singing voice a bit, because I always found my own singing voice a bit cringe and, a bit embarrassing. I felt a bit like, vulnerable singing.
Mer: I think you sort of develop that. I think it’s like you go through a mental thing. You find that different stuff works better at different points in your ability.
Meg: I think there’s a bit of, like, power and security by, just screaming and not giving a fuck. Whereas when you sing, you can’t fuck it up. You’ve got to be good. You’ve got to be in key. And so I was always quite nervous. So, yeah, it was definitely intentional, but now I feel more confident, I want to try everything, so.
Have these songs evolved at all over time as you’ve been performing them live?
Mer: A little bit, I think. Yeah. Certainly what I do has evolved. Because, yeah, obviously I wrote a lot of my parts. Before ever playing any of them live. Yes. So I get to playing them live and it’s like, okay, actually, I need to do it in a slightly different way. I think we’ve added some extra bits as well and just sort of made some, made more of certain moments live and stuff like that.
Meg: I think when you play the same songs over and over again, you do come to a point where you sensitise and you find that just makes things more interesting live. Definitely got into a bit of a groove. Yeah, and you sort of realise what things work well for the crowd as well, and then you can change that a bit because that works really well in that moment. Yeah, they have, really, over time.
It’s been a while since you’ve released anything new. Is there new music on the horizon for Vexed?
Meg: There is, yeah. We played a new song today in our set and it went down really well, which was good. We’re just working on our album at the moment, so we’re desperate to get it out because we’ve been playing the old stuff for too long. But we want to make sure it’s right before we release it.
How has your sound or perspective evolved since your earlier releases?
Mer: More refined, still lots of anger, still lots of aggression, but I’d say there’s more dynamics to it emotionally. It takes you on a slightly different journey, in some of the songs. Which is cool, but it’s definitely still very much Vexed.
Meg: Just levelled up Vexed.
Mer: Definitely. We’ve all got better at writing songs.
Meg: Yeah. Not that shit anymore haha. I think every, like, musician or artist in any capacity looks back at their old stuff and is like, bleh. I have a special place in my heart for it all, but I’m just desperate to play the new stuff because it’s just so much more mature. So I think when we first started, it was like, let’s write a metal song. Let’s sound metal. Now we’re just like, let’s just see what comes out.
Mer: Just write songs.
Meg: And if it happens to be heavy, great. If it doesn’t, it’s fine.
Your music is already intense on record but how do you take that to another level in a live setting?
Mer: Theo makes it really loud, our sound guy, haha. That’s a good question. I don’t know, actually. I think it’s just making sure all the moments that are supposed to hit, hit really hard. There’s some extra bits going on, on sort of the production stuff, and tone wise… it’s a different thing making something hit hard recording, as it is making it hit hard live. So it’s that kind of thing that we work on.
Meg: I think for me as well, personally, in my everyday life, I’m quite introverted and shy and quiet. Whereas when I get on stage, I don’t have to be that person. I can just be a bit of an asshole, and it’s quite liberating. It’s like I can just boss people around and just be this Vexed person. So it’s quite cathartic in that sense.
Do you think heavy music crowds are changing at festivals compared to a few years ago when you first started out?
Mer: Yes, I do actually. I think they are getting more diverse than they have been. When I first started, it was like, just very much one sort of person that was ever at gigs, and I think now it’s weirdly becoming more mainstream heavy music.
Meg: Yeah, that’s true.
Mer: Like heavy bands are doing arenas globally. Like super heavy bands, not like rock bands, heavy bands. So I think that’s bringing in a different sort of audience. I think in particular genres that would have exclusively been men, there’s way more women coming to shows and getting into that genre.
Meg: Yeah, we played a show in Finland on the last tour we did with Silent Planet and the crowd was predominantly women.
Mer: That was kind of weird to see. It was so cool.
Meg: It was just unusual. It was so weird just looking out and it was just the majority women. I just thought it was so fucking cool.
Mer: I’ve never ever seen that before, so that was interesting. But yeah, I think that’s probably it, because day to day, you don’t really feel changed so much, but when you sort of actually take snapshots over time, you kind of think, actually no, that is quite drastically different to how it was a few years ago.
If someone is watching you for the first time, what would you love them to take away from your set today?
Mer: “Holy shit, that was sick” haha.
Meg: Yeah that haha. I just hope we’re memorable. Like, I hate to harp on about it, but because I’m a woman in a band, you always get that, “you sound like X, Y, Z”, so it would be really nice to just be like, “oh, we heard Vexed and they were sick.” End of sentence.
Leave a Reply